this almost fatal radiance
by Trialia
Summary: He doesn't know how to save her, but he needs to now, more than ever.  Major spoilers for Let's Kill Hitler.


Title: this almost fatal radiance

Author: Trialia

Fandom: Doctor Who (2005)

Rating: T+

Character(s)/Pairing(s): Melody Pond, River Song, the Doctor

Word count: ~900

Beta: aliannesecunda

Spoilers: A Good Man Goes To War, Let's Kill Hitler

Notes: Title from Rainer Maria Rilke's 'Early Apollo'; thanks to kikibug13 for hashing one out with me.

Summary: He doesn't know how to save her, but he needs to now, more than ever.

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x

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Melody Pond's gaze scares him, somehow, in a way River Song's never has – well, only once, and never since that first time he met her, when she knew all about him and obviously loved what she knew and confused him so, so much.

But Melody... She's River, but she's not River yet. If he has anything to say about it she will be – but how can she become his River from _this..._person?

He doesn't really _know _Melody, despite having met her – albeit so very briefly and not really at all, when you think about it – as a baby, but she calls herself a psychopath, and that worries him: that she can say that so casually, and appear to believe it. It more than worries him that she behaves to match: it kills him.

He doesn't know how to save her, not _really_, and that is the one thing he never expected not to know, and the worst thing, because it matters, right there and then: figuring out how to save her may be all he can do to save himself.

He's not sure he deserves to be saved, but he surely doesn't deserve to die, does he? But he wonders about that, too, because what they did to her was his fault for not saving her in _time_, and maybe he _does _deserve to die, but _not here, not yet, there's just too much to do!_

It hits him, and he struggles against the growing paralysis of his dying body (_regeneration blocked_, and how did she _do _that, or even _know _how to do that?) to set in motion the chain of events that might, just _might_, fix this. A little bit. Fix _her_ more than a little bit. He can't bear to see her like that. He can see his River in the way she moves, sometimes, but the way she talks and behaves is a River he doesn't know - a Melody.

He gasps through the whole twenty minutes it takes him to go elsewhere, return, reclaim, return, keep dying in front of the woman he will love who doesn't love him and keep trying to save the Ponds - all _three_ of them, damn it. Getting Amy and Rory safe doesn't mean River is, not yet.

He whispers something to Melody that may help him, may help her, may work if what he did had any effect on this timeline. He can only hope it will work, and if they're his last words, at least he knows he broke rule one in telling her (he's not lying, this time).

He can't whisper any _more _than that, can't give her any more knowledge than what he's given her – his face has now gone numb, and his body is quickly following. But what he's given her is everything he can, everything he has left.

He almost doesn't care if he dies, so long as he can save her, save and redeem Melody for Rory and Amy and _herself_, even if she's never his River, if this works it won't matter that he dies here and...

He loses the words in his head next – then he starts to lose what's left of whatever hasn't gone yet.

He can't feel anything in his body through the cold numbness of the Judas tree's encroaching paralysis; he can't see a thing through the _black_... His frozen lungs can no longer gasp for air, but his hearing is the last thing to go, darkness coming down around his ears like a velvet shroud.

. . .

. . .

It's the first thing to come back, her whispering and the golden hue of her mind against his, the warmth, she's doing... what is she doing?... he whispers River's name in disbelief, knowing what she's doing, as his face regains feeling, his mind a vague grasp on the world... and her lips bring the life back to his, as he swallows the air she's breathing into his mouth and feels _gold_ everywhere.

The numbness becomes pain but _oh_, the good kind (if there's ever a good kind of pain), and suddenly he knows her again, he knows who the woman kneeling over him is, and it's really _River_ there above him, and the look in her eyes says that what he did to fix things worked, but _what she's done_, he _never _expected _this_, but somehow... and now he knows, he _knows_ that she'd never have survived the Library anyway because of _this_... and he can't tell her that–

Her body goes limp against him, her eyes falling shut.

She's lighter than he'd expected, even as a dead weight, though he doesn't like thinking that phrase. He can feel her breathing, so he doesn't worry about her being dead – and after what she's done, it's no wonder she's passed out; he wasn't sure that could _happen_, but she _has_ – his mouth won't form words the way he wants yet, so he uses the feeling he's regained to wrap his arms around her waist, tip his head over to press against hers, and hope she knows, in her unconscious state, that he's grateful she's there. That what he's done in the little time he had worked _enough_.

_Oh, River. Melody. River. Who will you be now?_

_I can't wait to find out._

_-fin_


End file.
